Helen Granger is a South Coast artist living in Rochester, MA who works in a variety of styles and materials including oils, charcoal, and inks. In her process, Granger prefers to work from life and strives to give her subjects enough time so that she explores them thoroughly.
Luis Villanueva, owner of Colo Colo Gallery in New Bedford, saw her studies of trees and cats and found the series of ink on paper studies of cats to be intriguing.
“Cats are a tricky subject if only because it is so easy to slip into cute portraits and I am not interested in those,” said Granger. “I try to put on to paper what I observe of the shapes their forms make as they go about the daily business of being a cat. I use the minimal number of lines that I can to capture their musculature, structure, and attitude. But as models they are great because they are always available, always willing to pose, and are will work for kibble.”
The one-artist exhibit, entitled “Deceptively Simple: Studies in Ink,” is a collection of 25 of Granger’s cat studies. The work is executed exclusively in Japanese sumi ink on rag watercolor paper.
Sumi ink is a traditional Japanese art material used for painting on rice paper. Granger uses this material with her own unique technique in this work. All the work has been completed in the last 6 months and the pieces range in size.
The show runs from May 22 through May 29 at Colo Colo in New Bedford’s Historic District. The opening reception is scheduled for Saturday, May 26 from 5:00 to 8:00 pm at the gallery located at 29 Centre Street.
For further information about Colo Colo or the upcoming Deceptively Simple exhibit, contact Villanueva at 508-642-6026, email him at colocologallery@gmail.com or visit the gallery’s Facebook page. Further information about the artist is available directly through the gallery and at hgranger.com.
